


Chorus Style

by Airmid



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, M/M, Oblivious Dean Winchester, One-Sided Attraction, Poor Sam Winchester, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22222018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airmid/pseuds/Airmid
Summary: Sam wasn’t all that clear why he needed to know, he just did when it sounded like the entire state’s law enforcement raced by minutes before his brother appeared, with two angels in tow that he didn’t leave with.How did getting dinner become so complicated?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Gabriel/Sam Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Chorus Style

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a Challenge prompt that was for a story that contained multiple, conflicting points of view, or the Rashomon effect. 
> 
> The relationships are, erm, one-sided and pre-slash if even. 
> 
> There is no set time period and is pure crack. Hope you enjoy and thank you for reading! :)

* * *

“I already told you. Jesus, do you have selective hearing now?”

Dean was bouncing on his balls of his feet making thick strands of slim fall in slow, extended waterfalls from, well, all of him. _Don’t think about it_ , Sam tried to command himself as the layers of iridescent goo stretched like some kind of phantasmal snot.

“Maybe try again? The details seem fuzzy.”

“Fuzzy?” Dean gave him a grin, hair still dripping tiny rivers down his face. “Really, you went with that?”

There wasn’t anything for it really and he knew he wasn’t going to get an answer as to what went down if he didn't get demanding while he sat here with what Dean proclaimed to be a case of the sniffles. What witch hexes with the flu? What kind of lame-ass witch curses a two-month case of consistent coughing? He wasn’t even contagious, which meant his loud ass of a brother couldn’t even share the joy with him.

 _So not the point_ , he reminded himself folding his arms across his chest in a gesture he hoped would show how unamused he was. Dean just kept grinning seeming to wait for him to get the joke and Sam just let out a breath, unpleased and frustrated, his throat all raw as he rocked back his plastic chair managing to hold back a cough.

Another few sirens screamed by outside and he swore he heard something like the deep whoomp of a military helicopter in the distance. It just kept getting better.

“Well, Dean, how did you get from picking up dinner to, to,” he waved his hand, trying to find clarity and failing miserably no matter how much he flailed. “That’s something that isn’t real clear.”

“As I said before, it all started while I was innocently waiting around to order some dry ass hamburgers at the local joint when Cas showed up looking all smitey and then bam,” Dean smacked his hands together to empathize just how much that last part was really a bam moment and Sam caught himself from jumping at the sudden noise. Well, maybe he winced just a smidge but it wasn’t like he wasn’t already jumpy from other loud noises.

It didn’t help that that bam moment caused little flecks of whatever the hell was on his brother to go flying off as tiny gooey particles and Sam tried to convince his stomach to keep his lunch on the inside as he wasn’t into those kinds of repeats.

Dean pulled out one of the other neon plastic molded chairs seeming to realize he had to give some sort of answer and Sam was insanely grateful that it didn’t have fabric on it. There wasn’t a way to block the waterlogged sound of Dean’s boots or that terrible, terrible ooze still trying to flee a millimeter at a time down his brother’s clothing onto the tacky carpet.

Unidentifiable ooze did not blend in well with puce.

“Try it again.”

* * *

The place was crowded with the line wrapping like a neat little maze between a handful of poles and Dean hoped it meant this place had decent grub. Looking at the grim coating everything like a fine layer of sweat he seriously started to contemplate maybe trying his luck at the corner store. Even if the people hanging out in front of it looked unfriendly and were openly hostile it still seemed better than getting an extra disease with his value meal.

“Dean.”

He so didn’t jump at the sound of his name from that harsh voice. He turned his head catching sight of Cas standing there, rumpled trench coat just barely moving from his arrival. “Dude, do not sneak up on a man. Just saying.”

“We must go.”

That was all there was. No real warning, no consent, no nothing, and friggin’ angels dude. It got so tiring after a while. When the movement sensation stopped he popped open an eye and found himself by some lake that he wasn’t sure was still in the town he had just been in.

“What the hell? Can’t you ask before you do angel stuff?”

“No.”

The ‘of course not’ he managed to keep inside his head instead of tumbling out of his mouth. Not that the angel would get it. Nope, not this one standing all tall and stoic like humor or human needs to have both feet firmly planted on terra firma were concepts that clicked anywhere in that angelic head. “So what the hell is so important you drag me here?”

“There is a disturbance that must be dealt with.”

Right, because details, who needs them? “And Sam? We couldn’t stop and pick him up on our little comp flight out here? Or weapons? Or this little handy thing called a plan as to what’s going down?”

“Your brother is still recovering from the hex that makes him suffer from the flu –“

“Ah come on he’s not that much of a pansy.”

“ – and it would be ill-advisable to use anyone who cannot think clearly,” the angel finished ignoring him completely, as usual. Dean hit his boot on the ground as his eyes adjusted more to the surrounding gloom. Mostly open spaces, hard dirt and some body of water that he had a bad feeling about because usually abandoned bodies of water and monsters go hand in hand.

“This must be dealt with promptly,” Cas added as though it made everything perfectly okay and it just didn’t.

“And this being what exactly?”

“An ancient primordial creature raised again through the unrest that plagues this planet and has currently been rehabilitating before coming to consume all life as a sacrifice. It was fortunate you were drawn by its signs and near.”

“Uh-huh,” he answered. This sounded bad in the exceptional sense. “So what does a little human like me have to fight this with?”

“I need you to be bait.”

He let that sink in a moment, wavering in his mind like he couldn’t have heard it correctly. That his friend wasn’t sending him in as the appetizer. “So you’re going to tie some bacon to my sweet ass and send me on ahead then?”

Cas to his credit just stared back, the lake the only real noise out there as it mindlessly lapped against the shoreline. It was a moment before he realized what this place was missing – the sounds of life. No crickets in this twilight, no birds, no wind even. Everything was still, like a crowd waiting for the arrival of something big and holding its collective breath.

Nope, totally normal and he was really ready to go home five minutes ago.

“Cas, man you know I’ll always help you but we need a better plan here than relying on how tasty I am, even if I am really tasty.” He tried for a grin, to get the angel to ease up just slightly but there was no wavering in that stone marble stance he had going on right now. Geez, you’d think after having been exploded he’d have gotten the stick dislodged a little from how high up it was shoved.

“I do have a plan.”

Nothing else was forthcoming and he jammed his hands into his jean pockets, relishing the warmth they offered as it was becoming apparent that it was cold out here. Not that he knew where they were in the slightest but it felt unnatural. A faint smell of rot was becoming more palatable and he figured that was just another bad of a sign to throw onto the dogpile that was his life.

He was about to try and prod the angel to be a bit more open when a slight sound came from behind him. He spun around, gun drawn, towards the crinkling noise. When he saw what stood there he almost fired on principle anyways. “You.”

“Me,” was the response as a piece of chocolate was shoved into that smirking mouth. “See you two lackeys felt it too. Where’s big, tall and hairy?”

“None of your damn business,” he got out hoping his tone was more threatening than it felt. Given the eyebrow movement he got back he was going to go with no, it was not. “Are you actually going to do something worthwhile for once?”

“I do many worthwhile things,” Gabriel said, his chest puffed out, rolling his shoulders. “Whatever plan you two dimwits had is out. I’m sure it was a marvel of engineering that would put the blow-up doll to shame but, yeah, we need something that would work.”

“That’s a damn fine invention,” he protested. Not that the plan to have him be bait was really up there on his list of things to try.

“I have something better.”

“You don’t even know our plan.”

“I already know it’s better. Details just get in the way.” The archangel said and Dean could see the flash of teeth in the deepening night, just catching the minimal light of the moon. “For one, I doubt Cassie there knows the spell to put mama nightmare back.”

“Cas?” There was a tightening of the angel’s fists, something that seemed to jerk in his friend that told him no, no that was not part of this plan. “Christ, and you were going to send me to be num-nums?”

“Alright, I take it back. I like that part of the plan.”

“Shut it, Gabriel,” he snapped, letting out a sharp breath as he looked up at the sky. Then he remembered he shouldn’t take his eyes off the trickster. “Cas, man, please tell me you had something lined up.”

“I intended to dispatch it as that seemed the most effective way.”

“What send me in so while it was gnawing on all my tasty bits you could stab it?”

“No.” Oh, that was an angry look there. “I planned on incinerating it.”

Okay, so that sounded epically awesome. Maybe they should have stopped at the car as he was fairly certain he had some stuff to help with that plan.

“Cassie, Cassie, Cassie,” Gabriel sighed and snapped, arranging himself in his newly minted lounge chair.

“I didn’t say it was a long term solution,” Cas replied coldly and Dean knew he was missing something that neither of these two winged freaks were telling him. “Only to buy time until the ritual could be found and completed.”

“Great,” Dean muttered to the ground and was that a tremor? He was fairly certain that was a tremor, that at least Cas felt too. Gabriel for his worthless hid just stretched out more. “Why doesn’t that work?”

A shrug from the archangel and a stare of eternity from the other. So, he tried to think. They needed to do a ritual, they had no real other way of stopping this thing though Gabriel was suspect as to not just walking in there and stabbing it.

“You have the ritual?”

“Yep,” the archangel said, popping the p. “All safe and sound ready to go. Gets a bit, well dicey if it’s not distracted though. Last time Mikey had to drag some of the bait from its gullet. But don’t worry Deano, I got your back.” Those teeth flashed again and he was really, really certain that this was a terrible, no good, low down plan.

Not like they didn’t deal in those every day and it wasn’t like this spur of the moment save the world crisis had left a lot of time as the next tremor seemed a bit stronger. “Why should I trust you?”

“You shouldn’t. But it’s what we got and Cassie there will be with you.”

“Will I?”

Dean couldn’t tell if that was confusion or some sort of derisive tone at having to be saddled with the human.

“In all your glory.”

“While you’ll be doing what exactly?” he asked.

“Setting things up,” Gabriel said lounging an impossible amount more, summoning a drink to his hand. “Someone has to do the heavy lifting.”

Before he could get out a retort there was another much more forceful shudder under his feet and Cas had his arm in a vice grip as he was being drug closer to the lake. When he felt the water slosh over his boots he tried to get away on instinct but the angel seemed determined to drag him under with him.

“Woah, Cas, human. As in don’t have a set of gills here. We can’t just –“

And that was as far as he got before he was being bodily shoved into the water. His clothes immediately tried to sink him and he struggled before the angel pulled on him again impatiently as though this was A-Okay. Like being half-drowned was a perfectly acceptable thing to do to friends.

Maybe if he held his breath for a while he’d make it a ways before he passed out and his lungs tried to use the lake as air. The angel was still impatient as his boots hit the silty bottom of the lake, so dark he couldn’t see a damn thing and he tried not to freak out.

Dean Winchester does not freak out, thank you very much.

It was only when Cas thumped him on the chest that he inadvertently sucked in what should have been a great death-y gulp of water that he realized it. Only air. He was now the first human fish and as neat as that was, and it was fairly neat, he wished he wasn’t on his way to see primordial evil during his first time out.

They continued for a while, Cas guiding him along which was good because he didn’t have echolocation and had no idea where they were. It was when his boots came down on something solid instead of the every shifting lake bed that he knew a change of scenery was coming up. Then he was being dragged upwards, breaking the surface in some sort of air pocket.

“A little warning -“ he was cut off with a hand over his mouth even while he still gasped. Friggin’ angels, man.

Trying to calm himself after that little walk through hell, he blinked, eyes adjusting to the weird glow the area seemed to have. There were trails of something shiny stuck to the walls, each little inch giving off some feeble Christmas light level of brightness. Together though they shined and he could see they were in some sort of cave complex, Cas already on the shore dry and waiting. Everything reeked of old water and expired carcasses and he was hoping none of the latter were in the water with him.

He bit back a comment on sharing the wealth of angel mojo as he begrudgingly swam over to join him, his clothes feeling like he had gained fifty pounds. As soon as he was on dry land again Cas pivoted on his heel and was already marching off down what appeared to be the main tunnel. At least it was just tall enough so he didn’t have to stoop much and the mental of image of Sammy in here made him smile. He pressed his fingers to the wall and winced as they came back with some sort of sticky goo.

Great, a self-lighting monster that was all kinds of oozy. Just what he needed more of in his life.

Not that they had far to go which he was thankful for as the soft squelching sounds drifting from his ruined boots were grinding against already worn nerves. The creature was absolutely mammoth though he supposed to Cas, whose jaw was all tight and rather manly, this thing wasn’t that big. Dean tried not to think of the logistics of this vast cave under some unassuming lake.

That thing though, it had several heads and some melting part of his brain told him it looked like a hydra not that he could remember exactly what that was. Just something big, mean and relatively nasty. It also seemed to go to the dragon school of hoarding as there were random piles of remarkably human stuff around the room. Along with the remains of said humans.

Yuck.

Not that it mattered as he’d gone up against big, mean and nasty before and hopefully the lazy oaf outside was doing something for once and not just summoning call girls. He really didn’t have much time to worry as that thing had turned one of its many heads, it’s slender neck stretching over and it was at that time he realized Cas had ditched him. Because of course, he did.

“Hi,” he tried as that thing blinked too many eyelids over watery eyes. “Came to see if you’ve heard the good news about our current Lord and –“

The roar it let out left ears ringing, feet scrambling to find purchase against the push back. Something lolled out its mouth and he was going to have to go with tongue. He really didn’t want to because there was a chance that that thing could start trying to taste him as disturbing as that unbidden thought was.

It shrieked again, heads swiveling around and there was Cas being all productive, stabbing his sword through what passed as the thing’s tail. Just when he thought he was in the clear he was flying through the air, that head knocking him into a closer pile of human, well human things he decided to call it as he got his teeth to stop rattling. No sense in dissecting it more than that.

Lumbering steps as it turned and he looked to see if there was anything useful. To his amazement, there had been people at some point in the lake with gear that had the unfortunate luck to encounter rabid Nessie. As it was currently trying to chew on Cas his hands flew to his pockets looking for the trusty lighter. His one true friend, reliable and constant despite the shit they got into. He flipped back the cap and flicked.

Damn, everything left him in the end.

He kept trying to get the flint to spark after the little bath the two of them had had as Cas was being thrown around like a crash dummy. The angel hit the wall, sliding down and he so did not like the strange look in those eyes. The one that talked about how he needed a few seconds when they didn’t have any as it finally caught and the flame flared.

Another shriek, a rushing of wind and somehow his lighter was made to withstand nightmares. His fingers fumbled stupidly on the valve of a full air tank. Maybe if his luck held out they’d make it. Still, no sign of Gabriel doing anything and that was no surprise. Probably waiting for them to be eaten before he swooped in to save the day. All hero like as he delivered the grave news to Sammy of his early demise.

Gabriel alone with Sam in any context made his fingers work faster. Its tail whipped Cas who had been righting himself but he didn’t worry too much about the angel. He was an angel, built to last and all of that. He, on the other hand, was made of stuff that was pretty finite when it came to it and there was a hiss.

Good for nothing archangels, he thought as he got himself ready because this probably would hurt for the first second. But Dean Winchester did not bow to pain.

“Yippee-ki-yay mother –“

* * *

“No, just no.”

Sam glanced over where Gabriel had seated himself on the edge of one of the beds looking sulky, arms crossed, glaring at his brother. As if Dean wouldn’t try to add spice to anything he was retelling though he felt fairly certain his brother had yelled that last line. Dean, to his credit, was up and still in his pose that he had taken to battle the ‘dragon’ and save the princess.

Sam just managed to hold in a snicker at that thought when he caught sight of Castiel watching everything. Best not to have thoughts he’d have to explain to a very confused and awkward angel later.

“You got a problem with the way I’m telling this story, Sparky?” his brother asked and there was a low thread to it, something promising pain if the answer was undesirable.

“How many times do you refer to yourself in the third person? Dear Dad, it’s like listening to the whinging of an escapee from the secure mental ward.”

“Oh yeah? Well, let’s see if you can do better. Not that you were a fat lot of help at the time.”

“I saved your dumb ass so at least –“

“Oh saved? Really, saved? That’s what we’re going with now?”

“Okay,” Sam shouted, hacking, as he raised his hands and tried to breathe. This was ridiculous, the amount of tension between his brother and the archangel threatened to ignite something in the next thirty seconds if it wasn’t unwound. Cas being the only sane one left was perched quietly on the other bed, watching with some sort of serene expression on his face. “Why don’t you give it a shot, Gabe?”

Dean sat in a huff and shifted on the plastic chair, a little more of that ooze slinking off his clothes and splattering with a moist plop. Just in time, Sam swallowed lunch back down and credited it to having the damn forever flu. Not how utterly gross his brother was currently. Which was his own fault for not letting Dean clean up before he demanded explanations to nearby explosions.

He decided to blame the present angels for not fixing the disgust factor climbing into overload.

“Fine,” Gabriel huffed, kicking out his feet and crossing his ankles. “I don’t know what pretty boy and his pool boy were up to until I got there. All I was doing was minding my own business –“ Dean’s snort cut him off and he was fairly certain the archangel’s raised hand was about to snap something terrible.

“Okay, okay you two.” He shot his brother a look and at least succeeded in making his brother push back more in his chair with a scowl showing off his disgruntled state. “Go ahead.”

* * *

He hadn’t been up to anything particularly nefarious. More like he was just innocently stalking a serial shoplifter because he was bored and it was entertaining to watch the woman suddenly find herself sticking to everything.

Then he felt it, that low groan of the earth that symbolized the waking of something very large, very mean and very hungry. It really wasn’t his duty anymore since he wasn’t one with the angelic choir. Not that he wanted it to snack on humanity; he liked the little critters too much for that. Where else would he get a lazy Sunday afternoon’s worth of entertainment?

Since snacking on mankind would be the exact result he could expect if he waited long enough for heaven to care, he pushed himself off and towards the disturbance. Getting there, it was what he had feared and Dad only knew that Mike wasn’t going to fly his shiny butt to earth from his comfortable cloud. Nope, only one person or, well, archangel, was around to set this right.

What he should have been expecting and kicked himself for not thinking of was the arrival of those two dimwitted yokels. The smart one wasn’t with them. Gabriel mused that perhaps he was tied up and in need of rescue later on. A nice reward for an actual honest night’s work.

“What the hell, Cas?” the older Winchester was huffing enough to make him even more ridiculous than usual. “Little warning or something. You don’t just go spiriting off people without their okay.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes as he watched his little brother fawn over the man, murmuring apologies for asking him to save the friggin world. Because that was Dean Winchester in a nutshell, pathologically angry and emotionally constipated.

 _Enough of this,_ he thought and manifested, crinkling his wrapper as annoyingly as possible, glad to see it elicit that desired terrified response. He blandly stared at the gun being waved at his general person and managed to just resist the urge to change it into something more appropriate. Say a giant flaming hot pink dildo.

“You.”

“Me,” Gabriel agreed, looking them over. “See you two lackeys felt it too. Where’s big, tall and brainy?”

“None of your damn business,” Dean spat still waving that weapon as though it would actually hurt. “Are you actually going to do something worthwhile for once?”

“I do many worthwhile things,” Gabriel said, shrugging slightly with a wicked smile as he plotted his next set of things. “Whatever plan you two dimwits had is out. I’m sure it was a marvel of engineering that would put the blow-up doll to shame but yeah, we need something that would work.”

“That’s a damn fine invention.”

Gabriel was fairly certain that the only friend Dean Winchester had at this point in his whole hostile life was made of plastic with the fortunate deformity of not having ears.

“I have something better.”

“You don’t even know our plan.”

“I already know it’s better. Details just get in the way.” The man actually growled, as though he had some right to know anything. Cassie was still fawning over him, trying to get him to relax. Well fawning for Cassie which was a hand on the shoulder looking sad and despondent. “For one, I doubt Cassie there knows the spell to put mama nightmare back.”

“Cas?” No answer outside of a faint tightening of those fingers. “Christ and you were going to send me to be num-nums?”

“I take it back. I like that part of the plan.” He made no attempt to hid his glee over that little development.

“Shut it, Gabriel. Cas, man, please tell me you had something lined up.”

“I intended to dispatch it as that seemed the most effective way.”

“What send me in so while it was gnawing on all my tasty bits you could stab it?”

“No.” And wow did his little bro look pissed. Like Dean dying could ever be part of that little plan. “I planned on incinerating it.”

If there was a time after this maybe he should get them stuck in a time loop of their own. Well depending on how receptive his little brother was who was actually worse than the hunter. And that was saying a lot though Michael had been his role model for eons so that probably accounted for the vast portion of it.

“Cassie, Cassie, Cassie.”

“I didn’t say it was a long term solution,” Cas replied coldly like Gabriel didn’t give him enough credit, and he probably didn’t. “Only to buy time until the ritual could be found and completed.”

“Great,” the human whined. “Why doesn’t that work?”

Not like he had to share the infinite workings of the first creatures so he just shrugged trying to not count the seconds ticking as the earth moved under his feet. That was not a good sign and the more rested it got the meaner it became. They had to move this along.

“You have the ritual?”

“Yep,” the archangel said, popping the p. “All safe and sound ready to go. Gets a bit, well dicey if it’s not distracted though. Last time Mikey had to drag some of the bait from its gullet. But don’t worry, Deano, I got your back.” He flashed his teeth, hoping the waning moon picked them up.

“Why should I trust you?”

“You probably shouldn’t.” Since yeah he was daydreaming about a screaming Dean even though Cassie would be upset for the next century over that. “But it’s what we got and Cassie there will be with you.”

“Will I?”

Dear Dad that was hope in his little brother’s voice of actual alone time with Dean, the Winchester that told heaven to go screw itself. Gabriel counted himself fortunate enough to not be said human or he would have wretched all over the grass. “In all your glory.”

“While you’ll be doing what exactly?”

“Setting things up,” he replied flipping his candy wrapper into the nether. “Someone has to do the heavy lifting.”

The human looked less than happy with this arrangement and seemed like he was about to say something when Cassie, in his unnatural and rather unnerving glee, started dragging Dean to the lake. Why they just didn’t fly down he would probably never understand. Maybe his little brother wanted a little payback, too, as he watched Cassie just drag the hunter under the water without remorse.

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” he said to the night air as he went to fetch the scroll and ingredients.

It wouldn’t take much to send this thing spiraling back down to the deep. At least Dad had done them that favor even if he made something unkillable by even an archangel’s blade. Well, what he assumed was unkillable as Mikey had never plunged his sword through its heart and if there was one that could kill it would be him. As he assembled the martyr’s dust and ash of a minotaur he wondered if Michael had just liked seeing the little ones being almost eaten.

Maybe it gave his older brother something to do.

Ten minutes, that’s all he had been gone. He knew, he timed it, and yet those two had already gotten themselves in trouble. Cassie was discovering how powerful it was while his angel feathers were being kicked across the cave as Dean did – well something. He wasn’t sure what but he knew that probably in the human’s mind it was important. And letting him get eaten wouldn’t score him brownie points as he carefully kept himself concealed as one of the few that could from this thing.

What had Dad been thinking when He made this? Probably had some sort of unresolved argument with Lucifer and this was Him letting off steam. Gabriel wouldn’t be surprised as he laid out the items getting them ready to do this before one of those two knuckleheads actually died.

It took a moment for his attention to be actually drawn back to Dean who was screaming some stream of obscenities while waving around a tiny flame. Mama monster stopped beating up Cassie for a moment, attracted to the light, and then he realized what was going on.

Shit.

Sam would never forgive him if he let Dean explode himself so he heroically –

* * *

“Oh God,” Sam said putting his head in his arms on the table, a cough breaking out weakly. He already had chills, a fever, body aches and felt like crap. But this was too much. So too much.

“I was just getting to the good part Sam-I-Am.”

“There is no good part,” he told the faux wood pressed against his cheek. Nice and cool and sane. Something reasonable to hold onto and all he wanted to do was just crawl into bed and pretend he was alone and there was no soft sound of goo still sliding off his brother.

“But I was about to save the day –“

“Oh you did no such thing,” Dean jumped in and Sam didn’t have to look up to know his brother’s face was red. “You just made it worse.”

“How? How could making you not explode into a thousand chunky bits not be a good thing?”

Dean just sputtered something angry that he didn’t quite catch and didn’t care to if he was honest. At this point, he didn’t want to know. “Just shut up, all of you. I’m done. Don’t want to hear anymore.”

“Sammy –“

“I said shut your pie hole, Dean,” he tried for menacing but face down into a table wasn’t really helping his cause. He pushed his aching frame back up and saw all three of the culprits staring at him. “So done with all of you. You,” he said pointing at Gabriel, “can leave. You, Dean, can go get dinner which you failed to bring back.”

“But Bigfoot, it wasn’t all that bad –“

“Gabriel, the three of you blew up a lake! A historical monument is in splinters. There’s like five hundred cops and three dozen news cameras out there from your little not so natural disaster. Not to mention none of you actually put that thing back where it needs to go.”

“Look at the bright side, it will take at least a century for it to glue all the itty bitty bits back together so it won’t be your problem –“

“Get out!” He didn’t mean to sound cruel but there was some sort of wounded look above that trademark smirk and Gabriel was gone in a snap. He dreaded what the reprisal for that was going to be and felt more than a twinge of remorse.

“Sam, man, we can have him put things back.”

“Don’t care, Dean,” he said laying his head back on that cool table. It felt so good against his heated skin and he tried counting. “Just don’t care.”

“Okay Sammy,” Dean said quietly getting up and patting him on the shoulder. “Hey still want one of those lousy hamburgers? I was thinking pizza. Yeah. Let me go scrub and then I’ll get you a pizza.”

The clomp-squelch of his brother’s boots retreated to the bathroom and Sam tried not to shudder under the strands of goo he was feeling soak into his shirt from where his brother’s hand had been.

“I suppose you do not wish to know what the creature’s version is of this.” Cas’ voice gave him the distinct impression he was slipping further into some kind of shared insanity, despite its low, grounding sound. Sam glanced over and saw the angel still sitting serenely staring off to middle space. As he was want to do at times.

“How do we know the creature’s version?” he asked, the words slow and not because of the flu. Oh no, he was starting to have a terrible realization as he felt that chill of his recently slimed shirt.

“The memories are part of the cells of such a creation and –“

“Hell no, just stop,” he said ripping off his shirt and shuddering as he stared at the little pools still by the chair his brother had sat in. “You know what. Don’t care. Just so don’t care at all anymore. You guys blow up whatever you want just don’t tell me. Am so far past caring –“ he grabbed a clean blanket off the bed and the keys Dean had left on the table that somehow someway were dry. “Tell Dean I’m sleeping in the car.”

A cold night on a too-small seat never sounded so good as he slammed the door shut behind him.


End file.
